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HOW DO YOU REVIEW AND RATE AN INDIE BOOK?

By Denzil Walton on The Book Owl Site:

I’m asking this question because I am (happily) receiving an increasing number of books from Indie authors to read. And in some cases I have a bit of a dilemma when it comes to reviewing and rating them.

Some of the Indie books I’ve been reading are excellent. For these 4- and 5-star books, reviewing and rating them is no problem at all. They are a pleasure to read; a delight to review.

Some of them are less good or even poor. It’s these that are giving me a headache.

If the same book had been published by a mainline publisher I would have given it 1, 2 or 3 stars. I would have been honestly critical, and made my review public. (E.g. Philip Pullman should do better than this).

But for Indie authors I somehow feel more protective. Indie author Audrey Driscoll identifies why I feel this way: “A trad published book is the product of a company, with many more people behind it than the author. Most Indie books are created by their authors alone, so a critical review is by nature personal.”

16 thoughts on “HOW DO YOU REVIEW AND RATE AN INDIE BOOK?”

I review indie books the same way as I’d review any book, the notion being if people want their work to be read and they want to make money from the industry, then they should be treated the same as a trad author. If they are not up to par, they get a bad review. If they are brilliant, they get an excellent review. The only thing I might do differently is to be a little more in-depth with my review, give a few examples of where things went wrong and perhaps suggestions on how to improve. If the author doesn’t like that, they are probably in the wrong business, for how can you get better if no-one tells you what the problem is?

Thanks for posting this Chris; it has generated some more interesting discussion. The overwhelming consensus seems to be that all authors should be treated equally, to the same standard. And that Indie authors have a duty to ensure the highest possible quality not just in their writing, but the editing of their work, illustrations, production etc.